


laughing gas

by paranormalbouquet



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23842156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranormalbouquet/pseuds/paranormalbouquet
Summary: “c'mere, i gotta tell you something,” noel let out lightly while tugging on cody’s shirt.
Relationships: Cody Ko/Noel Miller
Comments: 55
Kudos: 265





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i got all of this from a conversation i had with my friends, anya and star. so big shoutout to them, as always lmao. this has been sitting around for a while and couldn’t pass up being the 400th fic on the tag.  
> as always, this is fiction and i respect cody and noel’s relationships.

“c'mere, i gotta tell you something,” noel let out lightly while tugging on cody’s shirt. 

noel had been put under with laughing gas for a procedure and now he was sitting here, looped out of his mind and grabbing at his best friend’s shirt; the best friend that graciously agreed to bring him here for this.

“like for real, for real, c’mere. seriously. i got, uh, i wanna tell you somethin’. it’s important. like _important_. like really important. government-level important. oh shit, you think they’re _listening_?? wait— wait. it doesn’t matter…”

noel’s thought process was fucking crazy, you know, on a regular basis. and cody knew that. it just moved so fast. but this laughing gas… goddamn, it was making him verbalize every little thing he thought. and cody was almost in awe because he’d never seen noel like this. 

he’d heard noel talk about his brain like this before though. noel had told him previously that his mind is constantly running a mile a minute, it never stops, but _i’m able to keep it contained for the most part_ , he’d say. 

but now, sitting here, high off his ass on laughing gas, cody was finally seeing what noel’s mind is like as he rambled on and on and on. cody even had a hard time trying to keep up with everything noel was saying.

“noel, bro, you gotta chill. be careful,” cody laughed out as noel started getting a little too animated. 

“okay, you wanna hear what’s so important?” he paused, a giant smile growing on his face, “i’m in looooooove.”

“oh, are you?” cody chuckled as he responded. “with who?”

“well… he’s really pretty and he makes me laugh,” noel started. “and his hair is always perfect and he has beautiful eyes and… oh my god… i want some ice cream. can you get me some ice cream? wait, have you ever had chinese food? … that was dumb, of course you have. it sounds so fuckin’ good right now. and oh! his teeth. gorgeous i’m tellin’ ya. gorgeous. so white and straight and his skin looks so soft and…” noel paused. “oh, you’ll never guess who it is,” noel let out as he tugged on his friend’s shirt again, cody chuckling in response. 

“you really won’t. i don’t think you’d ever guess it in a ka-gillian years,” noel emphasized. “for real, oh my god, this is so funny, oh my— hey wait. how do you think they got that thing up there?” he asked distractedly as his eyes focused on a clock mounted high up on the wall. “must’ve had to hire, like, a giant or something to do that,” and he laughed and laughed and continued rambling.

“cody, cody, cody, cody, cody, cody,” noel interrupted himself.

“what, noel?”

“come heeeerrreee!! nice and close! right up here!” cody rolled his eyes with a smile on his face. he leaned in, his ear right at noel’s mouth. “yeah just like that, perfect.

and without any warning at all…

“it’s you.”


	2. Chapter 2

cody was basically carrying noel to the car, his arm up resting on cody’s shoulder and cody’s hand clamped on noel’s waist like a vise. and noel is stumbling not only because he’s still drugged up but because he just can’t stop rambling and his head is twisting all over and he’s throwing both of them off balance making cody stumble and cody’s tired off it.

not to mention his friend just confessed his love for him and that friend doesn’t even know he did it. 

“can you believe i fell in love with my best friend?!?” noel let out through his laughter after telling cody _he_ was the person he’s in love with. 

and he couldn’t believe it. he almost didn’t know if he _should_ believe it.

and the thing is that noel is letting everything that comes to his mind out of his mouth. everything. thoughts that he’d never, ever say out loud. but here he is, drugged out of his mind, spilling it all out. 

“bro, you’re so strong,” noel slurred out as he felt cody’s muscles in awe while they were walking. “how are you so strong?” cody didn’t even respond and noel started going on about something else entirely different.

so cody’s mind was starting to feel almost as jumbled as noel’s always is, his thoughts now running almost as fast as the words that were spilling out of noel’s mouth. 

they finally got to the car and cody helped noel into the passenger seat. cody noticed noel’s shoelace was untied so he bent down to tie it.

“whoa… i can see your back muscles through your shirt,” noel gawked, his eyes fixed on cody’s back, on the shape of his shoulder blades. 

cody brushed off the comment again and as he stood, noel’s eyes were focused on cody’s legs. 

“those jeans look good on you.” 

“thanks,” cody replied in a small, tired voice.

cody leaned in to clip noel’s seatbelt in and noel made a little sound that cody didn’t wanna think about for too long.

he was reaching over noel’s body to click in the buckle and noel suddenly reached up and started messily stroking his cheek. “you’re so pretty, dude. what the fuck, like so pretty. how—”

and cody pulled away. 

_what the fuck is happening._

noel was tipping his whole body back in the chair as cody closed the car door. he couldn’t hear him but he could see his face through the windshield and he looked genuinely distressed. just wracking his poor, jumbled brain over this issue, _how was cody so pretty?_

cody opened his driver side door and he sat down as he listened to noel talking to himself.

“why is he so pretty?” noel questioned while looking down at his hands. “dude,” he turned towards cody, perplexity in his tone, “h—”

“noel,” cody interrupted him a little more forcefully than he intended to. “it’s okay,” he continued with a softer tone. “just… just take a breath, okay? calm down, i don’t want you fucking up anything they just did for you in there, okay?”

noel smiled at the man sitting next to him and cody couldn’t help but give a little smile back. it was noel, after all. cody looked away and started the car.

“you’re sweet,” noel said and cody didn’t respond. “yo… so like, what if i wanna fuck it up though? like fuck something up. like,” noel laughed deviously as he almost thrust his hips a few times while sitting there. in that seat. the passenger seat of cody’s car. thrusting his hips. like that. “a nice little fu—” 

“noel,” cody warned him and noel giggled his little heart out. 

normal noel was always composed and calculated. but this noel next to him, this noel was a mess. sputtering out anything and everything, flopping his body around with no concern of the procedure he had just had done, completely just no control over any part of himself. 

—

they were on the road now and noel hadn’t said anything for a while, presumably focused on everything outside of the car. cody looked over at him and his mouth was open and his eyes were rapidly following everything they passed. 

cody turned back to look at the road and just as soon as cody realized noel hadn’t said anything in a while, he spoke. 

“bro, so you know when you’re, like, sitting there while were filming the podcast and you like, you like, uh, you start fidgeting with your fingers? yeah, oh my god, i love it when you do that because then i can, like, see your hand and, like, arm muscles flex and yeah. it’s very nice.”

cody just awkwardly smiled over at him, not quite sure how to reply to that.

“i love your hair long like this,” noel let out as he reached over and weaved his fingers through cody’s hair. cody leaned away from him and lifted his shoulder to get noel to let go. 

noel huffed as he sat straight in his seat again, pouting for a second but just then reaching over to roll the window down.

“my best friend is hot!” noel yelled out the window.

“noel!!” 

“cody ko has nice back muscles.”

“oh my god…”

“and he has a big dick,” and cody’s eyes went wide. “at least i think so… sam said it once. i mean, i believe it. like—”

cody scrambled to roll the window up, blushing as red as the car in front of them that cody was trying very hard not to fucking hit. and noel was just sitting there fucking laughing his goddamn ass off.

“dude!?!” cody yelled at him.

noel jumped in his seat, surprised by cody getting so serious at him. he scrunched up his face and became mad now that he couldn’t tell the world that he loved his friend. 

“oh, noel, come on,” cody let out, exhausted.

“ _noel, come on,_ ” noel mocked him. “fuck off, dude i just wanted to tell them that i love you,” noel growled.

cody sighed, “okay. i’m sorry, noel. please don’t be mad.”

“can i open the window again?” 

“if you’re not gonna yell out it.”

and noel crossed his arms in front of himself, grumpy as a five year old. and he didn’t speak for the rest of the ride to cody’s apartment, occasionally letting these forceful huffs out his nose to show cody he was still mad.


	3. Chapter 3

cody had been standing at his open car door for five whole minutes trying to coax noel out of the damn car. he just wouldn’t move, still mad at cody for closing the window on him while they were driving. which was absolutely ridiculous, cody thought, but no more ridiculous than anything else that was happening. 

“noel, get out of the car. i gotta give you your meds and if we don—” 

“i don’t wanna,” noel interrupted cody as he pouted, his arms still crossed in front of himself. and cody just stood there for a second, hands on his hips, not impressed at all. 

cody continued, “… if we don’t get up to my apartment you won’t get your meds on time. do you want that?”

“don’t care.”

“oh my god,” cody sighed, rubbing his eyebrows with his pointer finger and thumb. he could reach in and grab noel, pull him out of the car and hold him as they walk up the his apartment. but does he really wanna do that? no. is he afraid of what noel might do? maybe. cody sighed. “noel, get up.”

“no.”

“come on, noel.”

“i can’t.”

“why not?”

“my legs don’t work.”

and cody groaned into his hands.

“what are you doing?” noel asked with genuine curiosity in his tone which cody was annoyed with because _how the fuck can his tone shift so easily?_

“i’m being mad at you,” cody replied as he looked at noel who was now sort of turned towards him, hands resting in his lap. 

“don’t do that,” noel told him in a small, soft voice that cody had to try hard not to love. 

“well, you’re making it pretty hard not to,” cody let out snarkily. “just please get out of the car, noel. i wanna get you inside.”

“make me,” and cody realized that the way he was trying to avoid, that _was_ going to be the only way to do this. he shook his head in disbelief and begrudgingly went in.

“fine. is this what you want?” cody reached over noel’s body to unclip his buckle and he could feel noel chuckle as his chest pressed up against him. 

“yeah, yeah, just like that, muscle boy,” noel let out in a deep, raspy tone right into cody’s ear and it maybe might’ve made something stir inside cody that he really, _really_ didn’t want to think about.

cody recoiled away from him. “don’t,” he glared at noel as he warned him. but noel just sat there giggling away. 

finally, cody grabbed him and with all his strength and pulled him out of the car and onto his feet. 

“oh my god, that was hot,” noel muttered and cody rolled his eyes. 

—

getting up the stairs was another whole journey because noel didn’t want to fucking move his legs anymore. 

_how in the hell can a single human being be so goddamn stubborn?_ cody thought.

standing on the landing in between two flights of steps was when noel decided to call it quits. they had made it up one flight and now noel was trying to sink to the floor to sit down.

“noel, come _on_ ,” cody begged the man who was reverted to an almost child-like state.

“i’m tired,” noel whined.

“well, we’re almost there and then you can rest.”

“no.”

“no? what do you mean no?” cody asked incredulously as he assumed a new grip on noel’s waist to make sure the man didn’t slip out of his arms and land on the dirty floor. “we just went up one flight, why can’t you do the other?”

and he should’ve known better than to ask complicated questions of noel right now because the man didn’t answer, only chuckling in cody’s arms.

cody rolled his eyes and tried to get them up a step but noel protested, squirming in cody’s grip.

“fuck, noel do you want me to drop you?” 

“…drop down on me?” noel asked smugly, a shit-eating grin on his face. “i’d love that, actually.”

“you’re making this more difficult than it needs to be,” cody ignored him.

“oh, _oh_ , okay,” noel let out, breaking free of the hold cody had on him and leaning up against the wall. “you know how _difficult_ you make it for _me_ when you wear that _goddamn_ black shirt?!? the one that fits you so fuckin’ good and,” he looked off into the distance, presumably imagining what he was trying to describe, “and, and, the arm holes hug your muscles perfectly and—”

“noel—”

“hey, i’m not done. and your chest, the shirt just always flows over your pecs and it looks so good,” and noel was almost drooling.

“come on, noel,” cody tried grabbing him again but he swiped away his hands.

“you literally say the dumbest shit about yourself, cody. like for real,” noel starts on a different topic entirely. “and it’s, like, stupid as fuck. you’re a dumbass.” 

“what the fuck?”

“it makes me sad, man,” noel continued but in a surprisingly soft tone that cody wasn’t expecting at all. “you’re so great and pretty and amazing and then you— you say all this mean shit about yourself? it’s wack, cody. wack.” 

and cody kinda almost felt like crying as they stood there in that stupid stairwell on that stupid landing. 

“you gotta be nicer to yourself, cody, because you’re, like, hot and pretty and have good hair and, like, you’re fuckin’ smart and funny and, like, fuckin’ good looking and you just deserve better.” 

cody stared at him for a second, trying to take in the unexpectedly kind words noel just said about him.

“thanks, dude,” is all cody could muster up to reply.

“yeah,” noel had that shit-eating grin on his face again. “will you kiss me now?”

cody couldn’t help but chuckle as he looked down at his shoes. “let’s just get you up to the apartment, okay? i’ll let you have some ice cream.”

and that seemed incentive enough for noel to go up the remaining steps.

—

noel, now with his painkillers taken and a full belly of ice cream, sat satisfied next to cody on the couch as they watched the tv. and almost like clockwork, noel shifted closer and closer to cody every minute.

“i’m sleepy,” noel yawned.

“then sleep,” cody replied, not looking away from the tv screen.

noel shifted even closer to cody and rested his head on cody’s shoulder. what kind of an asshole would cody be if he protested? so he lifted his arm and put it around noel, allowing him to snuggle into his chest as he rubbed noel’s shoulder.

and in no time noel was asleep. and so was cody.

—

the sun glared in through the windows right into noel’s eyes and he squinted in response, stirring as he was still snuggled up next to cody which of course woke him up too.

dazed and confused, noel looked around and by the looks of it, had no idea what was happening. 

he finally turned his head and, if cody wasn’t mistaken, he was almost surprised to see cody. 

_oh no._

“bruh, why the fuck am i sleeping on you?”


	4. Chapter 4

good news was, noel was back to normal. bad news was, he didn’t seem to remember any of the shit he said or did the previous day. 

and _god fucking damn it_ was weird being around him now. because what the fuck what he supposed to do? just go back to normal? back to how things were before this? after having his best friend confess his love for him? he didn’t fucking know.

after having woken up sleeping on cody’s chest, noel quickly sat up and put a friendly amount of distance in between them. 

“…so, how did the procedure go yesterday?” noel asked, breaking through the silence that lasted a little too long for cody’s liking. “hopefully went without incident.”

“it went… fine,” cody answered.

“what’s the pause about?”

“nothing,” cody forced a little grin.

noel laughed while looking at him and his smile glowed in a way cody never really noticed before. “did i say something?” 

and what the fuck was cody supposed to say? that _yeah you fucking admitted that you’re in love with me and i just have to deal with the fact now?_

“bro, because i don’t remember _anything_ that happened yesterday. last thing i remember is fuckin’ sitting in that chair and being put under,” noel informed cody while still slightly laughing. 

_oh my fucking god. should i… should i tell him? oh god._

“cody, seriously if i said some fucked up shit, just forget about it because i probably didn’t mean it.”

now, _that_ put a whole new spin on things.

_what if he didn’t mean any of it? maybe he was just talking out of his ass. does he actually… maybe he doesn’t even have feelings for me…_

and you know, that kind of sucks because cody was starting to think that maybe he had feelings for noel.

—

noel went back to acting like he used to around cody and cody tried to go back as well. but sometimes it was hard, you know. it was hard when their hands would brush while noel was passing his phone over to cody for him to see something funny. that little bit of contact was all he would be able to think about for the next few minutes until he reminded himself to _not_ overthink it but then he’d just think about how he _wouldn’t_ have thought about it before any of this happened and he’d end up overthinking it anyways. 

so, cody was still questioning whether he was going to tell noel about what happened or not just to get it off his chest, just to make it so he would stop feeling so uncomfortable around noel. but i guess you could say as time went on, he was pretty set on not telling him because it was all probably drug induced anyways. because maybe he didn’t mean it. 

but then there were these little specks of noel’s behavior that peeked through his actions that reminded cody of things noel said from that one day that just confused the situation further. because _what the fuck?_ cody thought maybe noel hadn’t meant any of the stuff he said but then…

_ugh._

okay so, noel did say that he loves it when cody wears that black shirt, right? and cody actually kind of forgot about the fact until one day, cody was walking into the studio where noel was already sat in his chair looking down at his phone and waiting for cody so they could start filming the podcast.

“hey sorry i’m late. chili peed on the bed so i had to clean it up,” cody told him while walking in and placing his keys and phone on a table.

“i was thinkin’ it’s very unlike you to be—” and then noel looked up at him and noticed cody was wearing that damn black shirt and he couldn’t even finish his sentence. and the cherry on top was that cody fucking _saw_ noel drag his gaze over his body, how he completely lost his words looking at him. and this whole thing just didn’t bode well for the situation that either of them were in. 

“late?” cody finished noel’s sentence.

“yeah,” noel cleared his throat and looked back down at his phone. “yeah, late.”

—

so, maybe it was devious, maybe he was a dick for doing this, but cody came up with a little plan, a scheme to see whether or not noel really did mean all the shit he said on that fateful day, to see whether or not noel would slip up while being prodded. and with what happened at the studio the other day, it sounded like the score was already leaning in cody’s favor.

that began cody trying to sneak in little things noel said he loved about cody into most of their interactions, into most of the instances where they were together. cody started wearing the black shirt more often and keeping his hair longer and all that.

and correct him if he’s wrong, but cody could _swear_ that noel was getting progressively more flustered every time they saw each other. cody didn’t know whether that meant noel figured out what he was doing or if noel really was just losing it over cody doing all the things that were still internalized deep within him.

cody sometimes caught noel staring at him when he flexed his muscles while stretching or something and that’s when noel would always divert his eyes really quickly. that’s when cody would add another point to his side.

he’d sometimes catch noel staring at him as he ran his fingers through his long, messy hair. another point.

cody came to find that there were other things that triggered noel just as much as the things he flat out told him on that day. like when cody voice goes all high while he’s trying to prove something or when he practically jumps out of his chair laughing too hard at something noel said. those were instances where cody would catch noel looking at him with so much love, so much admiration that cody almost didn’t know what to do with himself. but in any case, it was just more points added to his side.

after what felt like too long of doing this little experiment and after cody basically lost count of the amount of points he had, he came to the conclusion that, without a doubt, noel was, in fact, in love with him. but now the problem was, _what the hell do i do next?_


	5. Chapter 5

cody was just trying to catch his breath, his chest still heaving from the laughter fit he and noel just had over noel doing his mark wiens impression.

and you know. he  _ really was just _ trying to catch his breath. that was all. he wasn’t intending on doing anything else. 

but… maybe as to be expected, it all went to shit when he glanced over at noel and the man just looked fucking angelic. he was slightly rocking back and forth in his chair from the laughter that still overtook him, bringing his hand up to his mouth every once and a while because he didn’t know what to do with his arms. and goddamnit it was fucking adorable how sometimes when noel laughed to hard, he wouldn’t know what to do with him limbs so they would just kinda flop out around him or go above his head or whatever.

for real though… he was perfect. noel was perfect. he looked so beautiful with his backwards pale green cap on, the little bit of stubble that poked out just above and a little below his lips, the way his face scrunched up with laughter making creases appear at the corners of his eyes and smile lines at the edges of his mouth and fuck, noel had these gorgeous dimples and…

and he looked away before noel could notice he was staring.

cody sighed and noel took it as coming down from the laughter because then he sighed as well but it maybe might have meant something else to cody. he looked down at his fingers and started fidgeting with them nervously and,  _ ding _ . 

cody’s brain decided that, of course, now was the time to remind him of his stupid little scheme he’d been carrying out for the past however the fuck long. 

time had actually come to mean less and less to him as he fell more and more in love with this man sitting next to him. every third thought was about this guy now. what the fuck else was he supposed to do with this elusive time of his? “time” just came to be equivalent to “thinking about noel”. so yeah, you could say cody was fucking whipped. 

and sometimes he thought about how he didn’t even ask for this. sometimes he thought about what life would’ve been like at this moment if noel hadn’t have told him his feelings that day. he thought about chance and whether or not he would’ve ever even realized  _ his  _ feelings for noel without noel acting up first. 

cody would think about fate and how maybe just maybe if this wouldn’t have happened, maybe there would’ve been some other thing that clued him in to noel’s feelings for him and his for noel. and, god, he’d think and think and think. 

and he’d never turn back. he would never regret how things have gone. he wouldn’t change a day. this was where he was supposed to end up, in love with noel. the thought of going about life without loving noel was sickening to him. and though the way life chose to throw this stepping stone, this revelation at him was a bit… impractical and annoying to say the least, cody knew this was how it was meant to be.

so cody—noticing noel had begun to finally calm down from the laughing fit they were both just in—started deliberately playing with his fingers. because, you know, the plan and all. because it’s something specific that noel told cody in the car  _ that  _ day.

and almost like clockwork, when cody looked up at noel, he could clearly see him staring at his hands as they moved. and it was a lot for cody. just to see such a blatant exhibit of what he’d been trying to prove with his scheme.

so this combined with everything else cody had already uncovered about this man sitting next to him… it was all cody needed to know. and the wave of confidence that came over him was like nothing he’d ever felt before.

noel was talking about… something. cody didn’t know. but the man was well into a sentence when cody’s burst of confidence came through and he blurted something out.

“i’m in love with you too… i guess…” he let out seemingly unexpectedly in the middle of noel’s story that was completely unrelated to what cody just admitted. 

and at first the feeling of horor took over cody’s body and the urge to just get up out of his chair and leave as fast as he could came over him because noel furrowed his brows on his forehead and he looked confused, like he was about to deny the implication. he even thought at one point noel might lean over and just fucking laugh in his face or something.

but the thing is, he didn’t. he just faltered and suddenly looked really stricken.

“how did you know?” noel asked him, a depth to his voice cody wouldn’t even know how to explain. 

and now there were so many emotions running through cody’s head right now, he didn’t know what to do with himself but, of course, revert back to humor.

“i, uh, i sensed it, you know, over time whenever you looked at me. i could just feel it,” cody waffled which inevitably made noel blush. 

“i said it when i was high on that laughing gas shit, didn't i?” noel let out, soft defeat in his tone.

“yeah,” cody admitted.

“yeah,” noel laughed, looking down at his lap. “i knew you weren’t that smart.”

noel’s gaze came back to cody’s face and they shared a smile, the most life-changing smile cody had ever exchanged.

—

“noel?” the nurse called out into the waiting room.

“yeah, right here.”

“your boyfriend is all set. you can come back and see him now.”

noel stepped into the room and there cody was, sitting there high off his ass on the gas that started their relationship.

cody turned his head and the goofiest smile grew on his lips when his eyes met noel’s.

“noel! the love of my life…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for reading:’) i hope you enjoyed. very grateful for all of u<3

**Author's Note:**

> f1esbian on twitter


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